This weekend, I’ve been feeling stuck in my progress. Part of this was brought home from the lessons in A Course In Miracles that I’ve been working on. Both Lessons 49 and 50 suggest that we should feel some sort of peace or connection to God. Frustratingly, my mind has been too noisy to do either.

Back when I was learning the Sedona Method, there was an easy solution to feeling stuck: listen to more advanced courses. I have to assume this is the main reason people involved in any sort of personal growth course buy more materials: because they’re feeling stuck and hoping to find the answer.

As I look hard at my path, though, my pattern in this is hardly limited to the Sedona Method. Whenever I’ve felt stuck, or like I’ve hit a plateau, I’ve looked for more materials to digest. I’ve learned some interesting things as a result, and sometimes been diverted from whatever path I was stuck on. But, these materials rarely, if ever, actually ever helped me through the difficulty I was facing.

I now think that the search for more techniques and wisdom is a particularly devious ego trap. It fills my mind with noise, and thus keeps me from the activities that would most likely help: meditation, prayer, and Sedona Method releasing. (I think these activities are all really aspects of the same thing, but that’s material for another day.) Spending my time reading, and perhaps experimenting with new techniques, lets my ego fool me into thinking that I’m making progress while distracting me from really doing so.

I simultaneously realized that feeling stuck is just another way for my ego to beat up on me. What if I didn’t have any expectations about the rate of my progress? How can I even measure my progress down a spiritual path, if I don’t know what the end looks like? My ego insists on either the satisfaction of tangible milestones, or the disappointment of being stuck. Ironically, my feeling that I’m not overcoming my ego quickly enough is just another episode of The Ego Strikes Back.

Maybe it’s a sign of progress that I finally recognize the trap I’m in. That makes my ego feel better!